


The Journal

by WridersRose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Meeting, Human AU, M/M, Pre-Slash, college-age but not a college AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WridersRose/pseuds/WridersRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet another stack of old books sat in the donation box when Castiel arrived at the library for work. With an excited grin he brushed brown hair out of his eyes and unlocked the metal case, pulling an armful out carefully. Castiel worked for a good hour or so carefully itemizing the donation until he came across an old leather-bound journal with a name stamped into the dark cow-hide – “Deanna Campbell”, the same name also scrawled in girlish handwriting inside the front cover. Who was that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Journal

Yet another stack of old books sat in the donation box when Castiel arrived at the library for work. With an excited grin he brushed brown hair out of his eyes and unlocked the metal case, pulling an armful out carefully – Anna always let him have his pick of the unshelvable donated books. There was a box in his car for these sorts of days, the days when families went through grandparent’s houses after moving them out or burying them. The books that sons and daughters didn’t want cluttering up their fancy shelves, the books that were to full of age and stories for grandchildren to appreciate, those were the books that got donated to the Library. Some families just boxed up all the books and dropped them off, not giving a second glance to any of them. On the other hand, some families picked over the shelves so much that all that was left over after wards were a handful of books that children had to read for school.

 

Castiel carried the books into the back room of the library and laid them lovingly out on the table, fingers caressing tattered pages and ratty covers. There were a couple notebooks bound in leather, a couple others that seemed to have been passed down from grandmothers past, perhaps. The twenty year old sat in his chair once he’d carted all the books in, carefully starting to organize them into ‘usable’ and ‘unusable’, with a sub-category stack of ‘take home’. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne went into the take home pile, the original bindings falling apart in his hands. A collection of ten books written by F. Scott Fitzgerald all went into the ‘usable’ stack, though they’d need a bit of work to keep them in good condition. There were other books as well, and Castiel worked for a good hour or so carefully itemizing the donation until he came across an old leather-bound journal with a name stamped into the dark cow-hide – “Deanna Campbell”, the same name also scrawled in girlish handwriting inside the front cover. A private journal, then? Diary, perhaps?

The curious college student opened the book carefully, looking for some sort of date. On the first page, it read “Property of Deanna Collins (Soon to be Campbell), twenty-two years old. Started: April 24th, 1966.”  Castiel settled back in his chair, brow furrowed as he started to read about a young girl’s life.

“Today, I turned twenty-two. Father gave me this book and told me to write in it every day, so I promised I’d try. I think it might be good luck, turning twenty two – Samuel finally proposed. Obviously I said yes, I’ve been waiting for this for absolute ages! He’s never been a very romantic man, but he took me for coffee and dessert at the sweet little diner on Osric drive after having dinner with my family, and he got down on one knee and everything after the apple pie came. It was sweet of him, since I would have said yes if he’d asked me on the front porch after saying goodnight, or any place really. I can’t believe I’m getting married!” The evident excitement on the page made Castiel grin as he closed the book and slipped it into his book bag to read after work, finding a couple more journals in the stack as he went.

It took the English major two days to read the book cover to cover the first time. In between classes, homework, working at the library and eating, he constantly had the leather-bound notebook in hand. He read about all the places Samuel and Deanna had gone on dates, about how Samuel enlisted for the armed forces but thankfully never got sent out, about all of Deanna’s plans for the wedding… The book covered three years, and Castiel was fascinated by just how much could go on in three years. Her writing, while steady at the beginning, faded into only really big things as it went on, the woman writing it changing from a carefree girl to a young bride to a young mother – a daughter named Mary, born in 1969. That would make her… Castiel did a bit of math in his head, deciding she must be about forty-four now.

Reading the rest of the journals took another week, and they were simultaneously the saddest and the happiest stories Castiel had ever read – He read about Deanna and Samuel’s daughter growing up, until she got to the age of seven and her father was killed in a drunk driving accident. That was when the themes of the book turned from joy and laughter to Deanna’s depression and Mary’s childhood seemed to disappear before Castiel’s eyes. The entries at that point changed from journal entries to letters, telling Samuel about his family’s life.

“Dear Sam,

            Our daughter went to her first high school dance today. She looked so beautiful – you would have had your gun out, sweetheart, scaring away the boy that came to pick her up. John Winchester seems like a good boy but I’ve never been a good judge of character – I married you, after all. I suppose all that matters is that Mary likes him and he respects her; she hardly listens to me and my opinions anymore. I wish you were here. It hurts, being alone in this house.

                        Yours,  
                                    Deanna”

Castiel watched as the little blonde girl with the gasping giggles transformed into a beautiful, troubled young woman by her mother’s description. He watched as the entries petered out from love letters and heart-wrenching, tear stained pages to the very last entry in the last book, 25 years ago in 1988 – “She’s pregnant. –D”. Now honestly, he could hardly sit back and let it end like that. These journals were a story that Castiel wanted to devour, he wanted to know how it ended, what sort of life Mary had, and what about the baby? Thing was, this wasn’t just any story. This was a person’s life, held in his hands here. This was a story of heartbreak and pain and love, and it was real. Castiel did what any normal person would do… He went to the library and tried to find out what had happened.

He found a marriage certificate – Mary Campbell and John Winchester – but no marriage announcement in the papers that the library had on microfiches, and they were married in ‘92. He didn’t find any hospital records, no sign that Mary had had the baby, but then they would want it to be hidden, wouldn’t they, unwed parents? The most surprising thing he found was an obituary, though it wasn’t for the author of the journals. It was for Mary Winchester, who died in a house fire fifteen years ago with her husband John. Castiel changed tactics after that, sitting at his computer at home and clicking through adoption websites, searching for a person of the right age and from the right place. There were three that he found finally, all given up for adoption in the fall of 1988. For one of them, the files were no longer sealed, but the only information on the mother was a name – Mary Campbell. Could it be? Castiel bit his lip and jotted down the information, adding it to the thin file he’d compiled of information on the Campbell-Winchester family. It took him another couple of hours to find a Dean Singer online with information matching the file’s information - and about two more hours to work up the courage to message him and arrange a meeting at the diner where the whole thing had started.

A month after finding the journals in the donation box, Castiel found himself opening the door of the diner down on Osric Drive and sitting at a booth against the wall. His heart was pounding in his chest, his palms sweating as he opened the menu while he waited for Dean. A month of digging through files and newspapers and obsessing over written pages was coming to its culmination, and he wasn’t quite ready for it.

Castiel was still bent over his menu, trying to focus on the lunch special, when a brown-haired man in a well used army jacket slid into the booth across from him. “You’re Castiel,” a deep voice said, and he jumped slightly, looking up.  

“Yes, I am. You must be Dean, then?” he asked, offering his hand to shake. The stranger nodded, studying Castiel and taking in the messy dark hair and beige trench coat.

“You know my birth mom?” Dean asked, a frown on his features. It faded into a self-assured smirk when the waitress approached and asked for their orders – a classic cheeseburger and home fries for Dean, and Castiel ordered the same since he hadn’t even looked at the menu yet. As she leaves, the college student shakes his head.

“Not exactly…” he began, shoving his fingers through his hair as he gathered his thoughts. “You see, I work at the local library. There’s a donation box outside and about a month ago someone dropped off a couple of personal journals with the rest of the stuff. I didn’t realize the owner was still living, and they had been donated, so I sort of read them,” he finished in a rush, feeling embarrassed now that he was actually talking about the books with someone. When there wasn’t any anger from the stranger, he continued. “I was curious, so I tried to figure out who’s they were… I have them, if you’d like, but I’ve also got… I mean, I can just tell you,” he scrambled to put his words together, biting his lip and looking up at Dean, who nodded.

“Yeah – You said they were my mom’s mother’s?”

Castiel nodded and bit his lip. “My research… I found the nursing home she’s at, if you want to meet her,” he said gently, “But I also found the obituary for both your parents.”

Dean nodded, taking the news in stride as if he had expected nothing less. “Bobby always said that was a possibility,” he sighed, shrugging and forcing a half smile, “I’d just hoped…”

“There isn’t anything in the journals past your mom getting pregnant,” Castiel said, studying Dean carefully. “But there’s stuff before that and the research, if you’d like them.” It took another moment or so before Dean was nodding, hesitant to accept what this stranger was offering but curious about his own past all the same.

“And you’re sure Deanna Campbell is actually my grandmother?” he asked after their food came, avoiding Castiel’s eyes by pouring ketchup onto his plate and shoving a fry into it.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he replied, mirroring Dean’s actions, only with fry sauce instead of ketchup. “I mean, you’re the right age, all the records that were available to me matched up…” The topic was dropped and conversation strayed to other things, the oddly matched pair discussing literature (Dean’s knowledge surprised Castiel) and cars (Castiel’s knowledge surprised Dean) and films and TV shows they both liked. It was only when they were headed out to the parking lot after enjoying some pie and exchanging cell phone numbers, in order to give Dean the information, that Castiel realized this could be the start of something new. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially written for my creative writing course, but I figured I would post it as well just to see if there was any interest. This is staying a one shot.


End file.
